ST. MARY'S COUNTY, Md. — A small town in St. Mary's County preserves an important piece of African American history. A moment frozen in time, Drayden African American Schoolhouse is one of the best preserved one-room schoolhouses in the country.
It was also one of only three schools that opened in the Valley Lee District for Black students, as opposed to the 10 schools for white students.
Built in 1890, the school educated students for over 50 years.
It was restored and turned into a museum in 2018 thanks to the St. Mary's County Museum Division and the Unified Committee for Afro-American Contributions (UCAC).
This news came as a delight to former student Frank Travers.
Travers is 95-years-old and still thinks very highly of his former school.
"I thought it was very nice they're doing it,"Travers said. "I was glad to see them preserve the school. I'm very proud of it."
He started school at the age of five, and continued to the 7th grade, the highest grade the school would offer.
Janice Talbert Walthour, a member of the UCAC, wasn't a member of the school but her organization has done research on what life was like for students during that time.
"They [students] enjoy coming to school, they enjoyed their teachers, so they had empathy for the teachers, and they had a lot of empathy for them. So it's been a very rewarding experience being involved with the renovation of the building and collecting the history," Walthour explained.
During the time it was open, one thing remained constant, the student to teacher ratio was nearly always 40 to 1.
"She couldn't be with each grade at the same time, so she'll give you work to do. While you're counting on your fingers trying to get an answer for it, she's back there teaching the middle grade," Travers said.
Reading, writing, geography and history were some of the courses taught according to Travers.
After finishing the 7th grade, students would work in the farms, unless they had families in bigger cities to help them further their education.
This was until Banneker High School and George Washington Carver School opened, becoming the first public high schools in the area for Black students according to Walthour.
The small classroom at Drayden didn't have electricity, so students brought firewood to heat the pot belly stove in the winter months.
In the summer months, they opened windows and hoped for the best.
There was no water fountain or pump at the school, so students walked to the nearest spring, a quarter mile away.
At this time, one of the biggest things students had to deal with was segregation, so things didn't come easy.
"I knew that wasn't right," Travers said. "I knew them riding to school everyday and pass me walking wasn't right."
The school lacked resources and this impacted the students' learning experience.
"The books were old and had pages torn out...You were running around in this room looking for somebody that had the page," Walthour said.
After graduating, Travers became a successful businessman in the community for 25 years.
Fast forward to 2023, Walthour wants more people to get involved in discussions surrounding racism, especially the younger generations.
"You cannot erase history, it's important that we get involved. Just as important as it is to have the family gatherings and those kinds of things, we need to gather at the school board meetings, we need to gather in the churches, education needs to be at the forefront when you sit in a building like this," Walthour explained.
Kuleema Kuteh contributed to this story.